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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-31-2008 @ 6:12PM
Vandekerian said...
Love the article, cheers! My mains a troll, and i knew most of the lore, but these articles are great for those just starting out a character (tried a human after reading the one last week).
Quick question thats always bugged me - did trolls practice shamanism pre horde? I heard someone say they did allot to found the resto path of the shaman class, and some troll NPC's use healing ward totems? It's not really important to my trolls back story (he is new wave shaman hehe), just wondering!
Reply
8-31-2008 @ 7:53PM
ILikePvPbuthatePvPers said...
Some tribes are Shamanistic, while some tribes have the Voodoo Religion.
The Darkspear weren't Shamanistic, they learned Shamanism from the Orcs and Taurens.
Shamanic totems were crafted by the trolls and were later adapted by the other Shamans.
9-01-2008 @ 1:15AM
David Bowers said...
I didn't find a lot of references to shamanism while reading about trollish history. It seemed that voodoo, witch doctors, and shadow hunters were much more important to trollish culture and warfare. Still, in other places I've read that the trolls did in fact have shamans also -- perhaps they were just fewer in number? Perhaps they blended elements of shamanism (such as totems) in with their voodoo and witch doctoring?
Since joining the Horde, the Darkspears have officially left voodoo behind and practice shamanism in its place, I believe. But voodoo still remains an important aspect of their heritage, and I'm sure there are many Darkspears who practice it in secret.
9-01-2008 @ 12:16PM
Imdala said...
I've been wondering about this too, since I have a troll shaman who still practices voodoo, and I'm not sure how much of that she'd have to hide (or whether it's relatively accepted). WoWWiki has some conflicting information, although I've never heard it said outright that they gave up voodoo entirely, just the parts of it that would disturb their allies (going from cannibalism to disrupt the souls of their enemies to equally bizarre but less "ewwww"-factor methods).
Vol'jin, at the very least, would have to be an open practitioner. He's a shadow hunter, and if I'm remembering correctly, they're almost to the loa as paladins are to the Light. Going through quests, there's actually a few trolls who openly practice non-malicious voodoo.
As was mentioned above, since shaman have a few spells that originally belonged to shadow hunters (including the upcoming Hex, I believe), I've sort of come to the conclusion that as the trolls were taught the orcish version of shamanism, they probably influenced the orcs with their traditions, and the tauren mixed in theirs and picked up everyone else's, and we have the class we know today. In which case a troll witch doctor would probably still fall under the designation of "shaman" to most of the Horde--if it quacks like a duck, ect. In the same way Draenei shaman haven't really separated from the Light as far as I've heard, I imagine troll shaman would be as likely to still worship the loa. But as I said, I've found a lot of contradictory information.
9-01-2008 @ 2:28PM
ILikePVPbuthatePvPers said...
@David Bowers
The Darkspear didn't completely abandoned Voodoo and Loa worship, they just abandoned the darker practices of their religion like cannibalism and ritual sacrifices.
That's why the still have the Priest class. They still have Voodoo as their religion.
9-01-2008 @ 7:54PM
David Bowers said...
I think Imdala is probably right on. We have very distinct classes in the game, but as far as actual beliefs and religions are concerned there's a lot of overlapping. A roleplayer could probably get away with being a voodoo priest as well as a voodoo shaman. Either one could call themselves a witch doctor, I suppose.
I was mostly thinking that they left Voodoo behind because the NPCs often say, in game, "stay away from the voodoo." Perhaps they just mean the evil aspects of voodoo and not the elements of their actual religion.